It seemed an open-and-shut case. It was day one of the Paris Olympics and we were witnessing geniuses at work. The Chinese pair of Chang Yani and Chen Yiwen had brushed aside their opponents and already secured gold in the women’s synchronised 3m springboard.
The United States pair of Sarah Bacon and Kassidy Cook had booked the silver and the Aussie duo of Maddison Keeney and Anabelle Smith looked all set to take the bronze; even a half decent dive would seal the deal for them.
Unfortunately, for the Team GB supporters, it appeared that Scarlett Mew Jensen and Yasmin Harper would have to contend with the 4th spot. They needed a miracle to bag a medal.
The miracle arrived gift-wrapped as Australia’s Anabelle Smith slipped on the corner of the board and landed in the pool like an apple from a tree.
To their shock, Mew and Harper brought Team GB their maiden Olympic medal of 2024, and that too on the very first day of the Games.
While this is certainly a feat worth tipping your hat to, here, we focus on the bigger picture.
When stakes are sky high
This is not the first time it has happened. It’s not the last time it will happen. The nerves getting the better of a world-class athlete at a crunch moment.
That’s more luck than nerves, some might opine. Well, you can call that a slip. I call that anxiety – heart pounding, breath racing, muscles tightening, brain freezing, and thus decision making becoming clouded.
And all this makes perfect sense as well. Why wouldn’t an athlete feel ultra-nervous when her entire life has revolved around an Olympic medal? When all she remembers doing is to eat, sleep, train, and dream— dream for that thing around her neck that ushers glory. When all she has done for the last three years is to think of that climax when she will pull off that perfect move in front of a fervent crowd.
The next thing you know is fists pumping, throat roaring, national anthem playing, flag flying et al.
Famous instances of athletes succumbing to pressure
Anabelle Smith’s slip on the diving board is just one of many instances when athletes have fallen prey to the massive pressure of the Olympic stage.
Before the 4×100 metre athletics relay final at 2004 Olympics, no one had run faster than the United States’ 100-meter sprinters Maurice Greene, Shawn Crawford, Justin Gatlin and Coby Miller, and the race was being considered a done deal. In fact, the US runners had finished first, third, and fourth in the individual 100-metre race earlier.
However, pressure got the better of them as Gatlin and Miller botched the handoff after the second leg. As a result, Britain’s Mark Lewis-Francis took the gold medal by one-hundredth of a second.
Australia’s Cate Campbell, the 100-metre freestyle world record holder, famously faltered at the 2016 Olympics. Campbell swam like a dream for the first 25-35 metres but then went off the rails completely, finishing a paltry fifth.
“The world got to witness possibly the greatest choke in Olympic history,” Campbell said on Channel 7 two nights later.
Why pressure hampers performance
When you have been training your entire life for something, and that moment arrives – it’s literally now or never. It’s the realisation of a stretch of glory thereafter or, potentially, a life of obscurity.
When you are almost at par with the best of the best from around the world in skill, what gives (or takes away) you the edge is mental fortitude.
Australian researchers David A. Savage and Benno Torgler published a research paper ‘Nerves of Steel? Stress, Work Performance and Elite Athletes’ in which they empirically investigate the relationship between stress and performance, in an extreme pressure situation (football penalty kicks) in a winner-takes-all sporting environment (FIFA World Cup and UEFA European Cup competitions). They examine all the penalty shootouts between 1976 and 2008, covering 16 events in total.
The research found that being in a situation of a relative advantage, the chance of winning the game with a successful penalty, increases by around 17%. Conversely, being in a relatively disadvantaged situation (pressure to lose) leads to a decrease in success by around 45%. Negative stress has therefore a stronger impact on performance than positive stress.
Block out the white noise
The media coverage, the spotlight, the expectations of friends and family all add up, but it’s ultimately the athletes who create pressure for themselves through their perceptions. It is, frankly, a failure in blocking out the white noise that comes with the territory of being an elite sportsperson.
Nerves can be kept in check by concentrating on factors within your control rather than external influences. As the catchphrase goes “control the controllable”. It’s about accepting that feelings of nervousness and pressure are normal. In fact, some level of anxiety is actually good. It keeps you on your toes and eggs your body on to unleash your ‘A’ game.
By repeated visualisation and real-life simulation, one can manage pressure much better. Hence, it’s only wise as an athlete to devote a chunk of your time to prepare mentally, in addition to working on your physical skills.
The legendary golfer Annika Sörenstam quips that she never hit a bad shot in her life: “I don’t remember them. You’ve just got to learn how to dissociate – make a quick analysis, boom. Forget about it, move on, don’t carry it with you, learn from your mistakes. We all hit bad shots. It’s just – how do you regain composure?”
One great way to dissociate yourself from the pressure is to focus on the ‘now’. One shot at a time, one move at a time. Once you break things down into the most basic units in your mind, it suddenly doesn’t seem that tough anymore. It is this ‘now’ that has the power to lead to ecstasy or agony.
Unfortunately for Anabelle Smith, the ‘now’ turned out on the wrong side of the line.
Image 1: Mike Egerton/PA
Image 2: Associated Press
Image 3: Getty Images
